Will of Fire, Lost in Darkness
by Kiue Jin
Summary: "The old road will take you to hell. But in that gaping abyss, we will find redemption." Haunted by a mission gone horribly wrong, Naruto was given a chance to take a long term mission a safe distance from Konoha so that wounds would have a chance to heal and his dreams of being Hokage safeguarded. Unknown to Naruto and friends, they are about to step onto cursed earth.


Naruto gazed through the glass out into the forest beyond with a morose sadness that had seemingly sucked the life out of him. Unfortunately, he had been like this since the beginning of the journey, barely uttering more then a few words a day that his traveling companions managed to cox out of him with a small amount of effort.

For the most part the journey had been uneventful and dull. The insistence of their client to ride along in his carriage rather then run alongside or leap from tree branches would have normally driven Naruto completely up the wall with pent up energy. While his almost lifeless silence was very disconcerting, it was, Tenten reflected, a small blessing in and of itself.

Lee's endless tide of 'youthful' energy was difficult enough to handle as it was under the circumstances. Being stuck with two fountains of pent of frustration that were not able to stretch their legs enough would have driven her completely insane after the first few days on the road.

Lee's attempts at taking advantage of the roof of the carriage to do some basic exercises (by Lee standards anyway) had been rather short lived, the green clad chunnin having given up trying after several days. Normally she would have found such a thing strangely out of character for her teammate, but she had a strong idea as to why he had stopped doing it.

The carriage driver…concerned her deeply in a manner that would have normally been unfitting for a shinobi. Of his many flaws, she didn't doubt that driver's loyalty to their client or believe that he was capable of causing anyone who had actually received any combat training any real difficulty in subduing him, let alone an experienced shinobi of any rank but… the man was deeply unsettling to be around.

The fact he was of a foreign, faraway culture that she had never witnessed with her own eyes was not the problem; Their client of was of the same background, but while his sense of dress and customs when it came to social interactions were different, at the core he still held himself in the same manner as the more humble breed of noble back home.

The driver had clearly forgone the concept of self-hygiene a long time ago. She couldn't tell if the absolutely putrid stench that surrounded him like an aura of decay came from the man himself or the clothing he wore; It was clear that once upon a time his clothing had been that of a high ranking servant of a wealthy clan, put it looked like he hadn't washed it or taken them off in [i]years[/i]. Not to mention… Tenten couldn't help but shudder a little as she remembered the man's nightmarish breath.

Granted, that wasn't the [i]only[/i] thing about him that caused her a subtle distress. There were other, little things that sent up red flags. Such as the fact that over the two months that they had been traveling she had never once caught the man blinking… or the way that he would occasionally just randomly burst out into hysteric fits of laughing and crying at seemingly nothing. The fact this had happened at least twice while he was [i]driving the carriage[/i] did not help her nerves about him, but he always insisted on driving.

Arguing with him on the subject meant he wound lean in far to close for comfort and talk into your face about it. Attempts had been made, but his own iron will, coupled with the fact that none of them wished to die from overexposure from whatever foul toxic fume seeped out of his rotted mouth doomed all attempts to replace him with literally sickening failure.

But while the journey was long, it was thankfully almost over. The driver* had announced in the early hours of the morning that they had finally made it to the old road leading to the estate and that they would arrive before the sun set.

That had been several hours ago.

The roads they had travelled had some varied in quality from smooth to rough and bumpy, but the old road was a different kind of beast altogether. It snaked its way through a forest so thick and overgrown that it blocked out the light of the sun so perfectly that the moment they entered it was as if they were traveling at night when the sky was overcast. The road itself, no doubt under siege by an endless legion of ancient roots and clearly not given the maintained and care that it required was so broken up and uneven that Tenten couldn't help but feel like actually setting a bomb off on it somehow wouldn't make it worse.

Gazing out into the tree line wasn't as relaxing as she would have hoped either. When their client had told them a bit about the estate during their travels he had mentioned that a large forest grew around it; It was one of the reasons he liked dealing with Konoha so much, since the forests around the village reminded him of his misspent youth.

Tenten had known from the start that since they were travelling to a continent that most from the Elemental Nations barely acknowledged existed that the plant life would be different, but she had looked forward to being in a forest again after so long away from home. This forest through…

There was something… something seriously wrong with this place, even if she didn't know how to describe exactly what it was. The Driver had picked up the pace since they had started through the forest, making examining each individual tree in the unnatural darkness caused by the treetops difficult but even though she didn't know anything about the local flora the plants looked… sick. Twisted into unnatural shapes that seemed designed to block access between the trunks.

For a fleeting moment she spied something in the darkness beyond the trunks of tortured trees. She didn't get a good look at it; The speed at which they were traveling caused them to fly by and the plants proved a difficult obstruction to get a clear imagine of it. All she saw as a pale, white glow that failed to light up the darkness around it…

Then it was gone. Lost into the depths of shadows that filled her with a general sense of caution. Just a memory of something that she might have imagined… if it wasn't for the frigid, icy cold snap that had seized her spine and hammered a primal desire to turn and run directly into her brain. Tenten wasn't immune to fear, but only once in her career as a shinobi had she ever felt anything remotely like this…

When her team had engaged what turned out to be a doubleganger of Kisame in the middle of a desert he soon converted into a minor lake. But this felt different through… this didn't feel like killing intent as she had ever seen it used before.

Puzzled, pale and fighting off the shivers running along her spine as she tried to calm her heart from its fright, she turned to look at her teammates… and noticed that Naruto had gone pale as well as he turned to her, his eyes full of confused fear as he started "Did you-"

He didn't need to finish. She knew what he was going to ask, and she nodded her head. "Yeah, I saw a glance of it. Did you see what- "It was Naruto's turn to shake his head, reaching up to place a hand over his chest to try and steady himself.

"What did you guys see?" Lee asked, seated opposite their client on the other side of the carriage, their interests and nerves on edge about what had clearly spooked them. Before they had a chance to answer, a massive thump rocked the carriage with the loud shattering of wood, followed by wild swerves that threatened to throw them around with the familiar haunting sound of the Driver's wailing laughter mixing with the panicked screams of the horses.

"BRACE YOURSELVES!" Lee shouted as the shinobi anchored themselves to what had been their mode of transport for months now, Lee grabbing their client as he flew out of his seat when the carriage started to tip to the side.

The sound of splintering wood as the carriage span out of control with the loss of one of its wheels on a dangerous road and collided roof first into a tree on the side of the road echoed through the forest. Unfortunately, it was heard.

*They didn't know his name. When they asked their client about it, he admitted that the last time he had seen the man was decades ago. Back then he had simply known him as the head servant and caretaker of the family estate without really interacting with him enough to know what his name was.

When they asked the man himself, the Driver had entered one of his fits of crying and laughing that was more wailing than laughter that lasted three hours… before it suddenly came to a stop and he went back to work like nothing had happened or the question had never been asked. No one has asked since.


End file.
